by Sara King
Pocketing the talisman once more, Imelda hurried after Giuseppe to board the chopper.
“Sit down and hold on, Inquisitorin!” her older German pilot rumbled at her. “This Ficker is trying to pull us into die Bäume.” He bent to his controls and started yelling in German, though if it was to her or his copilot, who was hastily strapping in beside him, or to God in general, she had no idea. All she knew was that the helicopter was lurching dangerously towards the edge of the forest, and the pilot’s German was getting more frantic.
The next few heart-stopping moments had the rotors within feet of the twisted branches jutting out from the birch and cottonwoods before they spun up enough to lift them out of the wind-whipped gully, scraping one of their skids on the canopy as they pulled free.
“Du Hurensohn,” the graying pilot howled, laughing and shaking a fist at the trees pulling out of reach beneath them, “Deine Mutter schwitzt beim Kacken! Fick dich! Fick dich! Lutsch’ meine Eier, Mutterficker!” Still laughing, he slapped the helicopter’s dash like he was congratulating an old friend, then started babbling to the copilot in loud, happy German.
“In English!” she cried.
Her flat-faced Italian bodyguard glanced over his shoulder at her and said, “Herr Drescher says that we are free of the trees, Inquisidora.”
Imelda raised an eyebrow, for she was pretty sure she’d heard something about a whore in there, but wasn’t about to argue. Though she was not skilled in the art of piloting aircraft, she’d seen plenty of crashes to know that, had one of those rotors contacted one of those trees, her night would have gone from bad to worse.
“Begin a search pattern,” she growled. “Start here, move in concentric circles outward. The djinni can’t have gone far.”
Giuseppe calmly relayed her order to the pilot, who was still yelling and shaking his fist at the ground. Upon hearing her command, the big man turned suddenly in his seat, his blond, hairy face filled with disgust. “I’m taking this Schlampe home, Inquisitorin. Look at the trees. It’s a Chinook.”
A Chinook was, Imelda had learned after six months of living in this unpredictable part of the United States, the native Alaskan word for ‘warm wind.’ It was volatile and sudden, and was responsible for ripping apart entire airfields in its passage, tumbling Bush planes and helicopters into piles like discarded toys. It had been responsible for 70-degree temperature shifts overnight, and had been known to tear the roofs off of the local schools. It could also last for entire weeks.
Cursing, Imelda said, “Fly around it.”
“Fly around the wind, Inquisitorin?” Herr Drescher laughed. He gestured a hairy arm at the ground, where even then, more trees were twisting and snapping in the breeze. “Of course. Just tell me where the wind is not while I keep us from rolling us into the treetops.”
“This was not on this morning’s weather briefing,” Imelda snapped, watching birch trees bend dangerously in the forest beneath her.
“Then let us put in our complaints to God,” Herr Drescher said, “and allow me to take us back home before I lose control of this Hure again.” He had already turned the helicopter around and was heading back toward the enclave hidden up in the valley below Eklutna Lake.
Imelda glared at him. The Germans were…infuriating…to work with. They were loud, boisterous, irreverent, liked to drink, and did not take orders well. She also knew, however, that Herr Drescher was one of the best men at his job, and she probably already owed her life to him that day.
“Very well,” she muttered, as if he were waiting for her response. “Take us home, then. We shall await the fading of the winds while you pray for forgiveness for your transgressions of speech.”
“My what?” the blond German yelled back at her over his meaty shoulder.
“Your foul mouth!” she yelled back.
“Oh!” he laughed. “That.” He shook his head. To his copilot, he chuckled a long string of German, then said to her, “As you command, Frau Nieve.” Gaining loft, Drescher tilted the nose forward and they were plowing through the air with great speed, though still sliding sideways due to the sudden force of the winds. As they flew, Imelda once more reached into her pocket and pulled the wolf’s talisman free. It was still warm in her hands, though that could easily be attributed to her own body-temperature. Had she imagined its heat? Had she really seen the Lord’s messenger? Somehow, she knew the two of them were linked, yet she had not the first idea of what ‘our sister of vengeance’ meant. Was it the name of a saint?
She would have to consult her Padre.
Chapter 6: Breaking the Ice
‘Aqrab paced the sands until he absolutely could not wait any longer and twisted back to the First Realm fully ready to kill anyone who stood in his way.
The helicopter, to his relief, had moved on. The sun had partially risen in his absence, though trees were down on all sides, almost as if a tornado had hit. Further, all around him, the wind was screaming in the branches, slapping at the spruce boughs, creaking as trees rubbed against each other. It was also warmer, now, above freezing.
‘Aqrab’s heart stopped, however, when he saw that the moss around his magus had been disturbed. Not only that, but she carried two new holes in her belly and chest, each oozing a tiny trickle of blood. Blood that she could not afford to lose.
“Mon Dhi’b!” he cried, dropping to his knees beside her. He laid his palms over her newest wounds and pulled the scraps of silver free. He sealed the flesh with the rub of a thumb, then put a hand on her neck, felt for a pulse.
At first, he found none. ‘Aqrab, however, had had three thousand years to learn the quirks of a Fury’s existence. When wounded past the ability to fight, they slowed, their bodies relaxing until their breaths could come at days apart, or centuries. As long as they still had the blood of Furies within their veins, they could continue to live in a form of stasis until they received help, or healed—or their enemies finished the job. To quarter the body or to cut off the head was the easiest way to drain a Fury of her power, but these fools, thinking she was a wolf, blessedly hadn’t known that.
It took an eternity, long minutes of holding his breath, praying to every god ‘Aqrab knew as the wind flailed at the trees above him, before he felt his magus’s slow, languid heartbeat. A single thump beneath his fingers.
He was so relieved he bent his face to her forehead and touched her brow with his. “Mon Dhi’b,” he whispered to her pale, sleep-slackened face, “you are one lucky little wolf.” With that, he hauled her from the bloodied mosses and tossed her over his shoulder. Grunting at her weight—even after hauling her through the Fourth Lands, ‘Aqrab still hadn’t grown accustomed to the heaviness of the Third Lander she carried in her veins—he headed northeast at a lope, staying well away from the main waterway of the Yentna River. He had seen the boats—without roads or highways in the Alaskan Bush, he knew their enemies would be using the water in lieu of pavement.
That, and the iron monsters of the sky. He was still unnerved that they had seen him in the half-realm. That, according to everything he knew, should be impossible.
He ran from morning until nightfall, skirting creeks and waterways, walking as far and as fast as he could while the winds continued to thrash the trees around him, knocking the occasional spruce or birch from its shallow root system, sending it crashing to the ground in a cacophony of snapping limbs and whipping branches.
Sometime around noon, it began to rain. A fast, sideways, biting rain that felt like a hail of cold needles jabbing him in the skin.
‘Aqrab had always hated the rain. He shuddered as the first droplets hit his head and shoulders, draining the Fourth Lander magics from his body as they oozed their way down his arms and chest to leave steaming violet puddles on the ground in his passage. Normally, he would have simply twisted to the half-realm, or, even better, disappeared to the firelands completely, but with his mistress barely clinging to life on his back, he had to endure.
By nightfall, the winds had died, but �
�Aqrab simply could not take the slimy, cold, filthy feel of the water any longer. After much searching, he ducked under a pocket carved out beneath the roots of a fallen cottonwood tree and dragged the magus in after him. While cramped, it was a blessed relief from the exhausting, energy-draining tug of water against his skin.
“You survive all that, mon Dhi’b?” he asked, touching her neck once more.
That she had not stirred at all throughout the rainstorm, despite the fact he’d closed her wounds, was not a good sign. It seemed to take centuries to feel her heartbeat, and ‘Aqrab could not be sure, but it almost seemed as if she were slipping further into stasis. Had he missed a wound?
Frowning, ‘Aqrab stretched her out in the muddied clay in front of him and summoned a flame upon his palm so that he could see her.
His heart stopped. Where her lips had been blue before, now they were white. “Mon Dhi’b,” he growled, rolling her over and pushing aside her icy-cold sweater to locate a wound she’d taken just below the right breast, “you need to tell me these things.” He had not found it earlier because the bullet had made a clean exit, its entry and exit points hidden by the curve of her breast and the strap of her bra, the flow of blood so slowed that, throughout the day, only a pink spot had appeared upon her sweater on either side of her torso.
He winced, seeing that, wondering how much of the blood of Furies still resided in her veins. With her this drained, those two tiny pink spots were precious.
What was worse, she was cold. Her hands, her face, her neck…all of it was as ice. And her fingers… They were tight curls of bone, refusing to be pried outward, as stiff as a corpse.
That convinced him. “You will hate me for this, mon Dhi’b,” he growled, closing his fist over the flame, “but I am running out of options.” A Fury couldn’t die of frostbite alone. But a Fury who had been shot, her lifeblood lost due to an enemy’s wound, might.
He set a tiny stick afire and lodged it into the half-frozen clay nearby, giving him enough light to see by. Still, he hesitated. To physically undress her… Such was, for a Fury, an act of war.
Yet wrapped in icy-wet cloth, her lips white as death, she wasn’t about to undress herself.
Besides. She had been the one to declare that war, three thousand years earlier, when she tried to chop off his head. All he had been doing had been enjoying a quiet day under the palms, sprawled out on a blanket, sucking on dates.
Hiding in the First Lands, he now recalled, because he’d just suffered yet another colossal failure with the latest djinni woman that had laughed and abandoned him, after he couldn’t consummate their union.
He narrowed his eyes down at the magus. Certain things, he decided, were going to be rectified. Soon.
Not while she slept, of course. But soon. He had spent too long without, and her perfect, slender body had taunted him for over three millennia. He wondered if she realized that was part of the agreement of truce. Probably not. She seemed quite certain that he was celibate, which was probably better for both of them, at least for now.
For now, he would satisfy himself with holding her body against his own, pretending she slept in willing contentment, instead of teetered on her death bed.
At least, he decided, she wouldn’t be able to punish him with shadow when she woke. He now held that particularly distasteful ability, though he kept it as far from his awareness as possible. And, while she still could—and would—certainly make his life miserable in other ways, he was free of tasting the poison of the First Lands in his system ever again.
Besides, he had always wondered what the little wolf’s body felt like, skin-to-skin. He would have to remove his sirwal, of course, since the silk may get in the way of heat transference. An entire layer of silk… He shook his head. No, couldn’t have that. His poor little wolf was much too cold for that.
Perhaps it was with more eagerness than necessary that he found the hem of his mistress’s prim, long-sleeved, turtle-necked sweater and pulled the muddy, sleet-crusted thing from her body. Doing the same with her boots and heavy denim pants, he hung each of them on a root above him, where they would dry from the heat of his body. Then he hesitated, debating over whether or not removing her bra and underwear were truly necessary.
Necessary, no. Delightful? Yes.
And thus, while that rational corner of his mind started babbling of wings of light and radiant swords, he stripped the last sodden articles of clothing from his mistress’s body, then removed his sirwal. Then, spreading out on his back upon the frozen ground, as naked as he’d sprung from his mother’s loins, ‘Aqrab pulled the little magus up over his chest and wrapped his arms around her back.
Immediately, his face twisted in distaste at the combined wetness and iciness of her body—there were few things in the world that he considered more repulsive than water and cold. The whole experience was not as enticing as he had expected. Much, in fact, like taking a man-sized tuna from a fishmonger’s freezer and embracing it against his naked flesh.
Removing his sirwal, he quickly realized as disgusting droplets of water began melting down his skin and catching in the folds between his scrotum and his thighs, had further not been his wisest idea of the last twenty-four hours. Gritting his teeth with distaste, for a djinni would rather smear himself in filth than wash with anything other than clean sand, he nonetheless continued to hold her.
After an hour, the last water upon her body had evaporated as steam, and ‘Aqrab was able to consider the odd-yet-pleasant feel of a Firstlander woman’s cool flesh against his own. He even allowed himself to relax, watching her.
His magus looked so much…less bitter…when unconscious. It is why he’d gotten caught so many times, on those sleepless nights he spent studying her in her sleep. She looked almost…pleasant. Even white-lipped and pale as a corpse, she had a certain…serenity…about her. Something she never maintained in life.
At least not when she looked at him.
Grimacing, ‘Aqrab busied himself with other thoughts. He began feeling along her thigh and leg, trying to locate the first two wounds the Inquisitors had given her. They weren’t difficult to find. Each bore a solid lump of metal beneath the flesh, like a hard knot that ground against bone.
The little fool. She’d sealed her wounds over the silver. Probably an act of desperation, then. He glanced at her face, knowing that she didn’t have the strength to endure him slicing those wounds open, especially not with something as crude as a rock or a sharp stick.
The wounds would doubtless continue to pain her—if her past run-ins with Inquisitors was any measure, whatever silver leached into her muscles before she removed the bullets would continue to aggravate the Third Lander for weeks or months beyond. Unfortunately, until she woke, his little angel of vengeance was stuck with them…
‘Aqrab frowned, realizing for the first time that his wolf no longer wore her pendant. Had the Inquisitors taken it? Then he winced, realizing that, in the last twelve hours of being dangled over his shoulder, he might have lost it. And, without her Lord’s token, she was going to have a more difficult time of directing her power.
Remembering how long his magus had worn that pendant, and how violently she had reacted the one time he had tried to touch it, ‘Aqrab decided that, yes, it had undoubtedly been taken by the Inquisitors. Which, of course, would make her that much more intent on bringing them all to their knees and chopping off their proffered heads.
The silly, rash little beast.
After the third hour passed and ‘Aqrab saw no visible change in her condition, he decided he might be able to aid her progress somewhat. Focusing on her face, which had regained but a modicum of its color, he began to seep Fourth-Lander magic through their soul-cord, into her body. It wasn’t much, but it might be able to help her begin rebuilding her Fury.
“All right, little magus,” ‘Aqrab muttered, as Law began to strain at his senses, in warning. “That’s all I can do for you without a wish.” Indeed, if he were to drain any more that nigh
t, the lords of his land would probably come looking for him.
Not, he thought unhappily, a place he wanted to be, as his father would be amongst them, and the last thing he wanted to do was explain to his sire why he was giving out free boons to a heartless little wench that had tried to chop off his head and would happily do so again, the moment she had her sword.
Warmth of the Mother, but he was tired of the gods meddling in his affairs. The miserable dick-lickers that they were, they were probably watching him from their thrones, drinking date wine and being fed the fruit of pomegranates by a thousand luscious virgins, laughing at the stupid djinni who had unwittingly twisted his own words into a curse. A Fury. The Goddess be merciful, he was being forced to celibacy—or settle for a Fury. Him. A djinni. With no alternative but a hot-tempered, utterly-unreasonable, brash, uncompassionate, violent, arrogant, holier-than-thou Fury. Angel of vengeance. Death from the skies. Handmaiden of War. Warrior-Priestess of Horus. Great Justice of the Pact, who had slain thousands with a simple swipe of her sword.
While he, the humble, non-murderous sand-singer of the Scorpion clan, a creature who loved to sing and dance and twine his legs in union, suffered the constant threat of her misplaced wrath. Someday, he would seek out the god responsible and wish a pox upon his balls.
Until then, ‘Aqrab thought, peering down at the sleeping Fury, he would have to make do.
Swimming from the haze of sleep, Kaashifah eventually became conscious of a near-uncomfortable warmth seeping into her from below. Groaning, she opened her eyes.
“Now before you do anything rash,” a voice from beneath her said, “I was only trying to warm you, mon Dhi’b.”
She felt him move, then, as if to gently lever her away, and realized in horror that their skin had contacted, down there.